Medical profession reputations are very vulnerable to online character defamation; we would say even more delicate and exposed than politicians, business woman, business man, artists and celebrities. The reason is that people usually check a doctors background on the Internet as soon they find his/her name or practice. Like no other profession, there are places where you can check a doctor's reputation:

• Official-government websites, that publish public-official accusations, investigations, and decisions, with the purpose to inform the general public. The information provided by this official websites is accurate most of the times, and it is not intended to damage doctors' names and reputations, nor to have negative impact to their professional practices. In general, this information does not have a major influence on doctors online reputation and professional practice. A non-medical professional, celebrity, business owner, business woman, business man, usually do not have this government agencies where people can search for a background.
   
• Non official websites that provide information input from users; such as complaints, unexpected treatment results, anger or negative comments, disgruntled employees' or patients' un-favorable comments, etc.
   
• Malicious, massive medical character defamation websites. We know of quite a few of them. Most of these web sites are paid for by... and... companies-organizations, with the sole purpose to ruin doctor's reputation and/or successful practices. These websites, besides providing the real information about a medical investigation, add their own negative comments that are far from being true, and are presented in a very malicious  way.

Our job is to defend those doctors whose reputation has been maliciously exposed, whose character has been object of libel and slander (written and oral -spoken- character defamation), and seriously compromised and damaged by negative online-internet comments or just medical character defamation.

We have explained a real case, where name and specific situations were changed, on our Online Name/Reputation Defense and Management. We will describe a similar case of Medical Character Defamation in much more detail, to be able to explain the implications of online character defamation, libel and slander, in the medical profession.

Part I: A Medical practice situation, before internet and Google's influence in society (BG, before Google)

In the year 1996, Dr. Mary Smith (names are fictitious), was conducting a very successful medical practice. An upset patient (that, by the way, was saved by Dr. Smith from her cancer) reported the doctor to a Medical Board. The government agency has the obligation to investigate every single citizen's complaint, and they did. A year later the doctor was found guilty of "not maintaining medical records properly" and other minor irregularities.

The Medical Board's decision was to put Dr. Smith on five years probation, which is a very common situation in today's medical practice: the doctor will be monitored in her professional practice by another doctor or group of doctors that do not have any conflict of interests with the sanctioned doctor. This monitors will report Dr. Smith's medical practice to the Medical Board. Dr. Smith has to also take a Physician Assessment and a few Clinical Training programs at a prestigious university.

Dr. Smith's medical license remained in full, so she continued to practice her profession with no restrictions. After three years, she appealed to the Medical Board, and her probation was lifted, due to her excellent practice, as reported by the doctors monitoring her, and for completing the medical training.

Dr. Smith continued her medical practice as successful as it was before her probation, and without any interruptions.

At that time, internet defamation not been heard of.

Part II: A similar Medical practice situation, after internet and Google changed society (AG, after Google)

In the year 2005, Dr. Gunterman, (name is also fictitious) a very successful physician, noticed that an insurance company was not paying her treatments, for no explainable reason. She decided to file a law sue for the six patients that had not been paid for, over several years. The money the insurance company didn't want to pay, was in the high six to seven figures. Enough good reason for the insurance company to try to discredit the doctor in front of the medical board, and influence the judges decision to win the case. In this way they wouldn't have to pay any money.

The insurance company persuaded all patients in question, to complain to the medical board about the doctor's treatment, even though they were free of cancer, alive and well; other wise they could have not make any complain at all! What the insurance company use or promise to lure the patients to report the doctor who save their lives, is still a mystery.

The rest of the story is very similar to the one in Part I, but the ending is quite surprising and different.

The doctor was put on five years probation, his medical practice monitored, and ordered to take a Medical Record Keeping program. Dr. Smith's medical license stayed in full, and she continued to practice her profession with no restrictions.

 Part II: The implications and damage of online Character Defamation.

Internet has changed dramatically the way society behaves. In November 2006, Dr. Gunterman's practice manager noticed the number of patients coming from the internet, dropped to ZERO almost overnight! Their successful website was bringing about 90% of the total patients in the last six years.

We were called by the doctor to check if the website was working properly, since we designed and optimized her website about seven years before. We confirmed the website was having a very good traffic; as good as it could be: about 40 visitors a day. Forty visitors a day and not even one patient for a month already! Some thing was really wrong.

With a little investigation in the internet, we realized that whenever Dr. Gunterman's name was Googled, a malicious and massive medical character defamation website's mention, appeared in the first page, first position of Google search, and most search engines. People looking for a treatment in the web, after finding Dr. Gunterman's website, performed a background check in the internet. When they found this very negative comments in the first page of Google, they just dropped her website and looked for another website. Is important to notice that besides the information about the doctor's probation, which was true, this massive medical character defamation website added non truthful conclusions about the doctor, making her appear like an outlaw quack.

The doctor tried in vane to have those negative comments removed from the massive medical character defamation website, to no avail. Not even lawyers could do anything to solve the problem, as there is not clear and effective law to protect character defamation in the internet, at the moment. The lawyers were able to make the site change or remove some of the "inaccurate information", that in plain English we call "lies", or libel.

Part IV: The solution

After four weeks looking how to solve the problem, we suggested to optimize (SEO) at least two pages of her website, so they will show in the first page of Google search, before the website with negative comments. Then we optimized other website, related to her specific kind of treatment. This two websites, started showing in Google's search first page very shortly, displacing the massive character defamation website, to the middle of the page; but it wasn't enough, the negative mentions were still there, in the first Google's search page.

We then suggested the creation of five websites, with the doctor's name as domain names (doctor's_name.org, and variations of it), in order to be able to place them ahead of the negative online comments. It is not necessary to choose a domain name, using the person's name as part of it; a very good placement in search engines can be obtained with any domain name, any way.

In about four months of diligent work, the malicious website was displaced from the first page of Google search. New patients begun to come through the website, and the doctor's practice started to come back to what it was before.

Visitors Map as 05-02-08